INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Renal cell carcinoma is one of the most malignant urological diseases, corresponding to 1%-3% of solid tumors in adults. The finding of intratubular epithelial dysplasia (IED) next to tumor areas suggests that this can be the biological precursor of some types of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The objective of this study is to evaluate the use of tissue microarray (TMA) to study IED and RCC by immunohistochemistry (IHC) with Ki-67 and p53 protein to confirm the evidence that IED is the biological precursor of RCC. MATERIAL AND METHOD: This study was performed in archival material from ten nephrectomy surgical specimens from Instituto Nacional de Câncer, between 2000 and 2005. DISCUSSION: TMA technique allows to sample and study several different areas from many patients in the same slide, using just one slide for each IHC marker. Once there was no previous study on IED by TMA, a validation test was needed first. RESULTS: There was no statistical difference between 2 or 4 tissue cores and the whole section analysis. CONCLUSION: TMA validation assay demonstrated that the use of two tissue cores with 1 mm² each was suitable to evaluate RCC and IED.
Renal cell carcinoma; Intratubular epithelial dysplasia; Tissue microarray; Ki-67; p53 protein
